


Don't Speak Her Name

by KrisseyCrystal (IceCreAMS)



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentioned Emerina | Emmeryn, Mentioned Olivia (Fire Emblem), War, basically the Midmire chapter written out, mentioned basilio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: His sister’s death too was the only chance they had at surviving this war.And she realized that on that cliff. Alone. With no one to hold her and tell her they loved her before she decided she should die.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Don't Speak Her Name

**Author's Note:**

> I had the absolute pleasure and delight of being part of [Scores of Heroes](https://twitter.com/feostzine), an FE zine celebrating the music of the series. It was SO much fun, and I'm so glad to be able to post my piece for it now.
> 
> Enjoy!

There is a dark irony in the Shepherds’ flight: that their every squelching footfall through the trenches of a long-dead, enormous beast’s sunken rib cage reflects their awful reality. None of it escapes Chrom’s notice. That the setting of their escape—the vehicle by which they must fight to live another day—is an artifact of death is perhaps analogous, even.

His sister’s death too was the only chance they had at surviving this war.

_ And she realized that on that cliff. Alone. With no one to hold her and tell her they loved her before she decided she should die. _

It is raining in the Midmire. Thunder rumbles overhead, a low and draconius thing, as the Shepherds splash through the mud between arching bones. The storm itself is another parallel, a backdrop to the tragedy wracking their insides. The hard-hitting rain drowns out the chaotic roar of the opposing soldiers as they charge.

No one comments on how close Chrom keeps Lissa—who can hardly speak—to his side, or how Frederick stands adjacent to them, a tall shadow quick to cut down anyone that comes too close to the broken remnants of the Exalt’s family.

When the Plegian general stands in their path, he says, “Emmeryn would not have wished for this to come to bloodshed,” and it is the last thing Chrom can stand to hear.

_ “Don’t speak her name!” _

The words spit out of him like fire. He means them so much more than just that: anger curls his lip, acidic disgust rising at this man who watched his sister fall to her death while still in dutiful service to the king that forced her to contemplate and choose her suicide as if it could somehow be conceivably beneficial.

He does not have the right to call upon the name of his sister in bargain.

Pain lines Mustafa’s weathered face. 

“Your rage is justified, Prince Chrom,” he answers. It’s either mercy or humility that lowers his eyes so as to not cross gazes with the prince. Chrom entertains the idea that it’s because he can’t. “But the meaning of your sister’s sacrifice was not lost on me. I suspect many Plegians who heard her final words would say the same. If you lay down your weapons, I vow to protect you as best I can.” 

Mud squelches under their boots as they fight, because fighting is the only option they have. Mustafa must have known this, too: that to Chrom, undermining the Exalt’s sacrifice by surrendering to the enemy isn’t a choice.

Everything could have reached a boiling point in this battle. All of the tension, the rage, the hurt, the grief—it could have run over. But there is grace in the resigned, moved conviction of the Plegian general and the way he tells his men he will not force them to fight if they do not have the will to do so after hearing the Exalt’s words. 

It is another irony, Chrom thinks, that there is little joy in Mustafa’s voice as he praises the soldier who vowed to stay out of loyalty to him.

Mustafa praises the Shepherds, too, as they kill him. His final words, a request that they spare his men, make Chrom’s lip curl again. But if there is any mercy that his sister would want him to allow, it is that. 

Lightning crashes the instant Chrom and his Shepherds meet eyes with what remains of the Plegian soldiers under Mustafa’s command. It illuminates their faces, drawing away the sharp shadows and silhouettes, pulling back the angry veil and leaving nothing more that separates them. Both of their forces are bereaved victims of hate.

When Olivia arrives, Chrom couldn’t agree more with Basilio when he says they should “bid farewell to this Plegian hellhole.”

They slip through the shadows of the ragged landscape, and Lissa takes Chrom’s hand. The moment she can, the moment they stop for breath, bent over with rain pouring over their backs, she murmurs, “You don’t have to forbid her name from your mouth, too, Chrom. I think Emmeryn would want you to speak of her.” 

Guilt that Chrom hadn’t even known he had clasped so tightly inside himself finally—like the rain—dissipates. 

He lifts his head to look at Lissa through the wet, dark curtain of his hair. “You think Emmeryn would—”

“—you  _ have  _ to speak of her, Chrom,” Lissa says like it’s the most important thing in their world, now. And maybe it is. “You have to give Emmeryn’s name power.”

Both of her hands, wrapped around his, squeeze tight enough to cut off his circulation. 

Chrom pulls Lissa close, wrapping her in his arms. He bows his head to her hair and Lissa embraces him in turn, fingers digging into his back.

“All right,” he promises. “I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tw](https://twitter.com/kissykrissey) / [tblr](https://krisseycrystal.tumblr.com/)


End file.
